Return to Brideshead (film)

Coming from the middle class , Charles Ryder strives to become an artist . He studies history at Oxford University , where he meets a wealthy aristocrat Lord Sebastian Flyt, a homosexual and a novice alcoholic . Sebastian's mother, Lady Marchmein, disapproves of her son's inclinations - she is a zealous Catholic . Young people become friends, and Sebastian invites Charles to visit his rich house. Ryder is delighted with the Flyts family estate , known as Brideshead. Now his life is inextricably linked with the Flight family.

Lord Marchmain invites his children Sebastian and Julia to visit him in Venice , Lady Marchmain approves the trip, but only if she is accompanied by Charles, hoping that a friend will have a positive impact on her son. However, Charles is more and more interested in Julia and soon kisses her in a dark alley - this scene is observed by Sebastian. Jealous, Sebastian breaks off friendship. When Charles returned to England, Lady Marchmain announced to him that Julia would never marry him, since he was an atheist .

Sebastian’s personal account is frozen by his mother, who is also worried about his growing alcoholism. Visiting Brideshead once again, Charles gives money to Sebastian, who he immediately spends on a drink. During a party to celebrate the engagement of Julia and Rex Mottrem, the intoxicated Sebastian still breaks down, but Lady Marchmain blames Charles and refuses him from the house in the inappropriate behavior of his son.

Years pass ... An incurably sick Lady Marchmein appears in the Ryder’s house, asking Charles to bring her son home. He goes to Morocco , where Sebastian fled. Charles finds a former friend in the hospital completely drunk and sick. Sebastian refuses to return. Mother is dying soon.

A few years later, Charles is already married, is known as a successful painter . On an ocean liner traveling from New York to England, he meets Julia. Lovers understand that they must be together, they decide to leave their families and go to live in Italy.

The couple returns to Brideshead, where Charles persuades Rex to let Julia go. Mottrem agrees in exchange for two canvases by Charles. However, such an arrangement is shocking and outraging Julia, who feels just a thing. Simultaneously with this event, something else happens: the dying Lord Marchmein is brought to Brideshead to spend the last days in the former house. On the deathbed, he, a former atheist, returns to faith and dies churches . Deeply moved by this step of her father, Julia realizes that she can not violate church rules and marry a second time.

Years later, during World War II , Charles was again in Brideshead, where a military base was deployed. The corporal tells him that Julia is in reserve, her older brother is killed . In the final scene of the film, Charles visits the family chapel , where he finds the only lit candle. He soaks his hand in holy water and is going to put it out, but changes his mind and leaves it lit.

• The exterior architecture and interior of Brideshead was Castle Howard Estate in North Yorkshire ^[1] .

Russia

"You can’t save on-screen time when dealing with the magnificent books of Evelyn Waugh," say film critics. They did not like the new film “Return to Brideshead,” which was shown at the Cannes Film Festival.

- Radio Culture ^[2]

Watching this film, where such masters of British costume films as Emma Thompson as Lady Marchmein are busy, is pleasant and entertaining. But the fact that the novel belonged to the field of allusions and cultural reflections , for example, the homosexual shock of Sebastian and his friends, is shown literally with the help of bold genre pictures and juicy acting techniques. The complex world of the book is reduced to a digest and moves at a gallop across Europe (episodes in Venice), and its subjective surroundings (Marchmeinov’s estate) looks almost like Hollywood kitsch .

- Andrey Plakhov ^[3]